Judy's Review:
This gripping suspense novel has echoes of “Strangers on a Train,” the classic Hitchcock movie in which two men meet on a train for the first time, and plot to exchange murders, outwitting the police. But “The Favour” is a thrilling debut in its own right, and the strangers are not men but two intelligent and attractive career women, living in beautiful houses in opulent suburban Maryland. They’ve never met but are gradually drawn together when one of them, Leah, sees the other shopping in the same liquor store Leah visits, stocking up on vodka to feed the drinking habit she’s developed to cope with her hideous marriage. Instinctively, Leah grasps that McKenna is, like her, an abused wife.
Both Leah and McKenna have become completely isolated, blackmailed into leaving their jobs to appease their jealous husbands. Friendless, they stay home, doing nothing but cook dinner for their rich and successful husbands, who demand it’s ready at the precise moment they walk through the door. The husbands are controlling to a vicious extent; the wives become more and more terrified.
